Early Marketing Materials
Above is is an emailable flyer (48 KB).	Here is a full-size (8-1/2 by 11, 448 KB) color poster. We will be doing a short (50 min.) preview matinee for school audiences on Friday, Feb. 18 afrom 1:30 PM to 2:20 PM. This is not for the general public, but for schools and homeschoolers. Please contact the Mello at 763-4047 for more information.

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Click here for PDF version of Press Release

MoveSpeakSpin
P.O. Box 8055 Santa Cruz, CA 95061-8055 (831) 335-1861
karl_schaffer@yahoo.com
www.mathdance.org and www.schafferstern.org

TWIRL:
DANCES BY KARL SCHAFFER AND FRIENDS
MELLO CENTER THEATRE, FEB. 18-19, 2005

Karl Schaffer, co-artistic director of Dr. Schaffer and Mr. Stern Dance Ensemble, presents a concert of new work on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 18 and 19, at the Mello Theatre, at 8 PM. Twirl: Dances by Karl Schaffer and Friends is his first solo show without artistic collaborator Erik Stern, and highlights the creative efforts of a group of local dancers and performers. Schaffer is part of the Mello Center’s Artist in Residence (AIR) Program for 2004 and 2005.

Twirl features new dances illuminated with the magical and the mathematical. Performances incorporate play with a variety of props: loops of rope, vaudevillian hats, five-gallon water bottles, and giant mathematical puzzle pieces known as tangrams. Dancers and creative collaborators include Saki, Rock Lerum, Fabricio Olsson, Gina Garcia, Shelly Adams, Lalu Simcik, Kristin Hoffman, and Kirsten Livingston. Musical scores include work by Berkeley composer Victor Spiegel. The concert also features performances by children from the Watsonville Charter School for the Arts.

Karl Schaffer has co-directed the Dr. Schaffer and Mr. Stern Dance Ensemble for the past 17 years. He and co-director Erik Stern spent two months touring the U.S. and Canada in 2003, performing at such venues as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, the Mondavi Center in Davis, and at two international Children’s Festivals in Canada. In 2004 they were named to the artist roster of the Kennedy Center’s Partners in Education, which sponsors arts workshops at many of the largest performing arts centers in the United States.

Schaffer and Stern’s workshops, and many of their dance works, focus on integrating math and dance. Their work led them to publish a 132-page book of class activities, MathDance, with fellow artist Scott Kim in 2001. Schaffer and Stern received a National Endowment for the Arts Access to the Arts award for 2004-05 (their fourth such grant in the past five years) for their cross-disciplinary performance work. This grant will fund residencies by Schaffer and Stern in Hawaii and a number of other communities. Schaffer taught at the American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Dance Intensive in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in July of 2004, and he teaches Mathematics at De Anza College. He also directs two touring shows about dance and math which play to Bay Area schools, and is part of the Spectra Arts in the Schools program.

Additional information about performers:
Saki makes her living dancing and teaching with a variety of artists including Dr. Schaffer and Mr. Stern, Tandy Beal and Company, Starstuff Productions Circus and Dance, Mir and a Company, Moving and Storage Dance Company, Spectra, and Pisces Moon Educational Theatre.

Rock Lerum has entertained audiences worldwide with his madcap style of physical comedy; he has performed recently with Sovoso, Clowns Without Borders, Tandy Beal and Company, and Teatro Pachuco. He teaches circus arts, drama, and gardening at the Orchard School in Aptos.

Fabricio Olsson was Brazilian National Champion in gymnastics. He has performed at Sea World and Legoland as well as with Tandy Beal and Company and Moving and Storage Dance Company; he teaches gymnastics to children of all ages in Hawaii and Santa Cruz.

Lalu Simcik teaches Frey Faust’s Axis movement technique, has studied locally and abroad, and creates work with Karin Moriarty at Dance Visions. He also teaches mathematics at Cabrillo College.

Gina Garcia is a bilingual teacher, Spectra artist, and social worker who has worked extensively in Santa Cruz County teaching Visual Arts, Capoiera, Contemporary Dance and Improv, West African, Afro-Haitian, and Afro-Brazilian dance.

Shelly Adams performs with Mir and a Company and Janlyn Dance Company, works in the Spectra program, and teaches body-mind movement classes (Nia) and yoga.

Other dancers include Kristin Hoffman and Kirsten Livingston. Kristen Hoffman also dances with Mir And A Company and has performed with Area 51 and Urban Renaissance, and she has studied with the Ailey School of Dance.

Composer Victor Spiegel has composed for TV, radio, film (the score for Dolls), multimedia, industry, dance, and theater. He lives in Berkeley.

Presented by the PVPAA’s AIR Program
Admission: $15 Adults
$9 Seniors/Students/Children
Tickets: PVPAA (831) 763-4047
or online at www.mellocenter.com
Location: Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts,
East Beach & Lincoln Street, Watsonville

The Artist in Residence Program at the Mello Center is funded in part by grants from
The Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County and Granite Construction. This concert is partly funded by the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County.